Gripla - 2022, Síða 212

GRIPLA210
47. Slightly abridged from Thomas a Kempis (attrib.), De imitatione
Christi, book 1, chapter 4: “Cum sapiente et conscientioso viro con-
silium habe; et quære potius a meliore instrui, quam tuas adinven-
tiones sequi.”58
48. A very similar formulation is found in the Decretals of Gregory IX, c.
16, Idem Archiepiscopo Colocensi, I, 33: “Quum inferior superiorem
solvere nequeat vel ligare ...” (Whereas the inferior is unable to release
nor bind the superior...). Also found in Gottskálk Jónsson’s miscel-
lany, British Library Add. MS. 11242, 38r, but with the attribution
“Sancte Tome” – evidently St. Thomas Aquinas, since there is a com-
parable sentence in the Summa Theologiae, Supplement to Part Three,
Quaestio 20: “Sed in exteriori foro inferior non potest superiorem
excommunicare aut absolvere superiorem.” (But in the exterior court
the inferior is not able to excommunicate nor absolve the superior).59
51. Wisdom 6:1.
52. Proverbia Wiponis.60
56. The first of the sets of three is unidentified; the second two have a
counterpart in a couple of eighth-century continental mss. showing
Irish influence.61
58–59. Proverbia Wiponis.62
61. According to Martin Irvine, a very similar formulation “was a
common preface to grammatical commentary: Quot sunt claves
sapientie? .V. Que? Assiduitas legendi, memoria retinendi, sedulitas
interrogandi, contemptus diviciarum, honor magistri.”63 I have not
been able to find another text in which the version given in Gissur’s
fragment is preserved.
Perspectives on Law and Justice 66, ed. by Stefan Huygebaert et al. (Cham: Springer, 2018,
89–110) 96.
58 Thomas a Kempis, De imitatione Christi, 4th edition, Bibliotheca Ascetica A.1 (Ratisbon:
Fr. Pustet, 1921), 11.
59 CICan 2, col. 202; British Library Add MS 11242, 40r; Summa 5, 81*b.
60 Cf. PL 142 col. 1260.
61 Patrick Sims-Williams, “Thought, Word and Deed: An Irish Triad,” Ériu 29 (1978): 86.
62 Cf. PL 142 col. 1260.
63 Martin Irvine, The Making of Textual Culture. ‘Grammatica’ and Literary Theory, 350–1100,
Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 19 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994), 461.